No Longer Holy (or Holey)

The saga of the arm is finally over....

Nine months ago I slipped on my garage floor and broke my right arm in several places; the point of the elbow was particularly badly damaged, shattering into five or six separate pieces.

The following day, in a three-hour operation, surgeons at the Royal Sussex County Hospital patched it up, inserting a metal plate and several screws to hold the pieces together.

Then, two months later, the scab on the point of the elbow came off and revealed a small hole in the arm - with part of the plate and the heads of some screws plainly visible.

My doctor sent me back to hospital where the surgeons were surprised - and a little alarmed -  whipping out their mobile phones to take photographs of the elbow. I was told it was rather dangerous because of bacteria on the exposed plate and another operation was needed urgently, so they scheduled it for a couple of days later.

However, on the day the operation was due, a specialist arm surgeon advised against it as the bone fragments had not fused yet and removing the plate and screws might cause the arm to ‘collapse.’

So, I returned home with my holy arm. A couple of months later we found a possible reason for the failure of the bone fragments to fuse – tests showed that I had osteoporosis in the spine and osteopenia in the hips. In the meantime, the hole enlarged slightly and the plate and screws were quite visible, glinting brightly...

Two weeks ago the saga ended with another operation to remove the plate and screws and sew up the hole. I’m relieved to report that the surgeons found that the bones had finally fused. Also, the bacteriological results from the inside of the arm were satisfactory in that they did not find any truly-nasty bacteria, and a prescription of three months oral antibiotics should sort out the junior league bacteria that they did find.

So, I’m no longer quite so holy (or holey) and the arm works well so I can now be more timely about updating the blog...